


Surfacing

by SegaBarrett



Category: Bloodline (TV 2015)
Genre: Backstory, Gen, canon compliant death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-04
Updated: 2017-05-04
Packaged: 2018-10-27 21:44:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10817355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SegaBarrett/pseuds/SegaBarrett
Summary: Danny can remember the plunge.





	Surfacing

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own Bloodline and I make no money from this.

_You have to tow the line._

It’s a funny phrase, really, tow the line. Like the undertow that will sweep you under if you aren’t careful.

Or get your hand caught in a rock until all your breath goes out of your body, until you’re nothing but a memory unspoken in the night, a name no one allows themselves to say anymore.

Danny Rayburn lets his feet dangle over the edge as he allows himself to breathe, letting himself say the name. 

Sarah.

She is in the wind, she is in the quiet breeze that brushes against his beaten shoulder. She is a comfort.

In order to fit with the Rayburns, she reminds him, you must tow the line. You must listen, you must not question, and you must accept any punishment they may hand down from on high, even when it was not your fault.

Because it is always, somehow, your fault.

This is what it is like to be a Rayburn.

***

Danny can remember the night that Sarah was born.

He had been so excited, oddly so – he already had a little brother, after all, only a year younger and following in his shadow around the Inn at all times.

But a sister…

She was almost mystical, with her big brown eyes and her tiny fingers. Danny used to hover by her crib, fascinated and terrified all at the same time.

She just seemed so very fragile. And in the Rayburn house, fragile things seem to always get broken.

***

He can see her, sometimes, and recently, that sometimes is most of the time. She is his constant companion in a way that John never really was – it’s hard to be friends, much less “brothers” the way they should be, when you might as well live on other planets. 

The only one he lets live on his planet with him is Sarah. Even Eve and Nolan have never been fully invited, because who wants to be a part of that hell? 

He would not have chosen it for himself, after all. 

He would not have chosen it for anyone.

He watches the water from his place on the dock, the way that the sunlight glimmers over it and paints his reflection, as if it has been destined since the beginning of time that one day he will find himself caught beneath the surface. 

Sucked under by something.

He looks blurry in the water, and he wonders if that is how everyone in his family sees him – is he more of a shadow than a man? Is he someone who they only think about in some kind of abstract form? The monster under the bed, even though it is the monster they liked to play with, who held their hand and took them trick or treating, who snuck them their first cigarette and covered it up so their parents wouldn’t find out.

The monster they used to pretend to love, once upon a time.

He could fall into the water if he just let go.

But he won’t.

***

She smiles at him; she always does. She never looks at him with that gaze in her eyes the way that the rest of the family does, like they are always waiting for him to do the next wrong thing at any juncture.

Every joke he makes, she laughs. She loves to kick her feet in the water and to talk with him long into the night about anything and everything. About every dream she has and every thought that passes through her mind.

They never annoy one another.

When they go out on the boat, they don’t talk at first.

“I’m not ever going to go anywhere, Sarah,” he promises. “I’m going to stay with you, no matter what.”

“Even if Mom leaves?” she asks, eyes wide and innocent.

Danny wants to protect her. It is as if she is his own in some way, his own to protect and care for, to help to glide over the water.

“I said no matter what, didn’t I? Listen, you might end up being stuck with me, but we’ll be okay.”

“What about Little Meg?” she asks, even though Meg’s not much littler than she is.

“Maybe we can bring along Little Meg in time, and Kevin too.”

Sarah curls her nose.

“Kevin can stay home,” she tells him. “He picks at his feet all the time.” 

She swings her legs over the edge again and lets out a long sigh.

“What if we floated away, forever and ever?” she asks. She stands up and looks at Danny with a shy, yet determined smile on her face. She turns around and leans over the edge. “What would happen if I just…”

Her sudden gesture catches the seahorse necklace and tugs it forward, out of her hand.

And she dives away from Danny forever.

***

When Danny falls below the surface, he wonders at how everything is black under the water, a beautiful pitch black.

John has drowned him, John has killed him. He ought to feel anger, ought to want to lash out at his brother.

Instead he only feels a growing dread, followed by an uneasy peace.

Nolan.

He thinks of Nolan, how he will never see his face again. 

How he will never find out if his son learns how to smile for real. 

He is the one falling under the darkness. He is the one taking the plunge.

 _Hello, Sarah,_ he thinks, and then he is gone.


End file.
